Here are some working animals I snapped 73 years ago.

French workhorse - 1946


German workhorse team pulling Alpine snow plow - 1946


Bavarian oxen team at work - 1946

I have no idea how I missed this Challenge! Since I don't own a digital camera, I used my digital scanner to "create" these two flat images. The front component had to be laid first on the scanner's glass, and the others "built" in layers on top.

Surprise! Peek-a-boo!


Where's the dictionary?

Two Manhattan doorways, a few years apart (to say nothing of the tens of millions of dollars separating them).

Manhattan doorway - 1951


Manhattan doorway - 1976

Pat, the radioactivity in my exercise is contributed by Picasa 3. I hope this image doesn't alarm the Feds.

Pat's Nuclear Lighthouse

WOW! Simon, this tree looks as if it's roots extend far down into another dimension!

Hi, GiGi! Here are a few of my old "sky-views" -- and I do mean OLD!

Bridge over Austrian lake - 1962


Sacre Couer Basilica atop Mont Martre, Paris - 1947


Fürstenfeldbruck church with bridge statue - 1946

Sorry, Matt -- I haven't enjoyed a Hollywood war movie in many years. I think "The Longest Day" was the last one. Ken Burns' documentaries replaced them. I'm not being snobbish -- I know that some actors and directors really experienced war and were capable of bringing the horrors and poignancy and bitterness to the screen, but their best efforts will be diminished and sabotaged in editing of the "final" print, or in the selection of the theaters.

Whether you were drafted or enlisted, an officer or NCO or EM, an airman, Marine, sailor, infantryman, WAC, -- ANY branch of the services -- it was guaranteed that you would have at least ONE buddy! Here are some samples. Incidentally, the band members of Major Glenn Miller's Allied Expeditionary Force units were preparing to fly to Paris where they expected to meet their leader, who flew the day before in bad weather. His plane went missing over the English Channel and was never found. The band gamely continued a planned tour among the Allied Army units before being disbanded in 1946.

Three buddies enjoying an evening in the EM Club - 1946


Two buddies share their enthusiasm for photography - 1946


Members of Major Glenn Miller's AEF Band, Britain 1944


Two NCOs enjoy talking politics in Occupied Germany, 1946

Thank you for your sentiments and the smilies, Tim!

Thanks, Bob. Showing the memorials and gravestones is OK, or bringing out old-timers to stand next to the MC of a ceremony. But showing the wounded and disabled veterans is not welcome in some circles, because it emphasizes the real cost of war.

Thank you for commenting, Judy! When I was a Post Commander in the American Legion back in New Jersey a dozen years ago, I gave several Memorial Day and Veterans Day speeches emphasizing the need to remember the terrible costs in lives and injuries inflicted by war. We also organized a team to visit local Veterans Hospitals to distribute gifts.

Thanks for commenting, Richard. The 1965 Hollywood film, "Battle of the Bulge," was such a travesty that it should be banned! For example, the battle was fought in bitterly cold weather, with deep snow blanketing thickly forested mountains, and the skies were shrouded by low-hanging fog that prevented the Air Force from attacking the Nazi panzers. Hollywood chose to film in Spain where there wasn't a flake of snow in the battle scenes, which they staged on flat land under clear blue skies. Any resemblance to the real Battle of the Bulge was limited to the addled brains of the producers.

I thought I'd post some of my shots that showed various sides of the military experience. The photo of Pvt. Abrams was taken by an uncredited U.S. Army Signal Corps photographer. I think Abrams was captured when the Nazi SS tanks sprang the Battle of the Bulge surprise attack. The battle raged from December 16 to January 11. Near Malmedy, Belgium. on Dec. 17, 1944, an SS unit lined up captured Americans in a snow field and massacred 115 helpless men by machine gunning. When the battle finally ended, the German casualties reportedly totaled about 120,000 (some 80,000 killed or wounded, 40,000 taken prisoner). The Americans lost 66,421 men, of whom 18,416 were taken prisoner by the enemy. Pvt. Abrams apparently was one of them. The senselessness of war was never better proven than in this single tragedy.

AAF officers "inspect" first P-80 jet in Occupied Germany, June 1946


AAF GI atop junked Nazi fighter in Fürstenfedbruck Air Base, 1946


Some GIs "fraternized" with German kids, Erding AAF base, 1947


Pvt. Alvin L. Abrams, captured Dec. 1944 and rescued from SS POW camp four months later

I can't really compete with the marvelous images of insects, flowers and landscapes posted by my fellow Hoggers, but I dredged a few submissions from my dusty bins. The newest, "Carry-on Surprise," is a creation I assembled on my Epson scanner, without a lens or camera, so the textures in the image are as pure as possible!

Aggressive garden swallowing Berchtesgaden tourist hotel


American airman atop downed Nazi fighter aircraft against sunset sky - 1946


Carry-on surprise (includes metal, glass and textile textures)

Many poor men and women in Europe harvested every scrap of loose wood they could find in the forests to use as fuel during the war years. They were forbidden from taking sizable trees, but fallen branches were fair game, and were often carried out on baby buggies or other makeshift carts -- and even on their backs. Fallen trees never lay long enough to rot like they do in America. This scene was photographed in Bavaria in 1946.

The closeup photo shows a piece of rotting driftwood on the shores of Long Island Sound in 1950. Nothing is wasted in Nature -- unless we interfere with the natural processes. IMHO. (Thanks, Jim!)